Admissions Standards

News about Admissions Standards, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Feb. 23, 2015

Decision by University of Massachusetts at Amherst to ban Iranian nationals from certain science and engineering programs has sparked anger and complaints; policy, set up to comply with federal law that established new sanctions against Iran for its nuclear weapons program, is revised after backlash in community; still, many Iranian students and those who sympathize with them question need for any policy, as law does not explicitly call on universities to carry out its enforcement. MORE

Feb. 13, 2015

Investigation commissioned by University of Texas Board of Regents finds handful of applicants are approved each year at direction of school president over objections of admissions office; finds instances of such influence peddling by outgoing president William C Powers Jr have grown more numerous in recent years. MORE

Jan. 17, 2015

Group of Stanford students asks university for copies of their admission records, and urges others to do the same; Stanford is required under federal law to comply within 45 days. MORE

Jan. 16, 2015

David Leonhardt The Upshot column examines major expansion of financial aid announced by Washington University, which is attempting to shed its distinction as the nation's least economically diverse top college; holds that project highlights national shift in higher education in effort to address proportional dearth of low-income students. MORE

Jan. 4, 2015

Thousands of students from around the secluded town of Maotanchang in China's eastern Anhui province attend its high school to prepare for annual national college-entrance examination known as gaokao; Maotanchang is unique in that its sole industry is cram schools, where students study for gaokao 16 hours a day, seven days a week; gaokao has come under fire pressure it puts on students, as it is sole criterion on which college admission is based. MORE

Dec. 19, 2014

Obama administration will release report previewing its planned system for rating performance by colleges on aspects that include admissions standards, affordability, how student loans are handled, and how well students fare in finding jobs; Education Dept concedes project has been dauntingly complex, and remains hampered by limited availability of data; number of colleges have raised criticisms of system. MORE

Dec. 13, 2014

Barnard College, elite college for women, is weighing formal admissions policy for transgender students, rather than considering applications from such students on a case-by-case basis; college has number of trans masculine students, those born with female characteristics who identify as male or neutral, but no trans women; charters of single-gender schools define gender in binary way that conflicts with how growing number of students see themselves. MORE

Dec. 12, 2014

Op-Ed article by Prof Mitchell L Stevens opposes common college admissions model under which young, high-school graduates are both assumed to be vast majority of undergraduate body and favored over older students; holds that placing responsibility for college decision and shaping of campus life with young students can lead to number of ill effects, from failure to graduate to financial loss to psychological stress; calls for rethinking of four-year college model and better integration of younger and older people on campus. MORE

Dec. 7, 2014

New York City high-school admissions process is grueling for many middle-school students and their parents, but as awful as it can be, it used to be much worse; since 2003, city uses deferred acceptance algorithm, designed by team of economists from Duke Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Standford, for school allocations. MORE

Nov. 30, 2014

The Upshot; perception that it has become more difficult to attend elite colleges in America is fueled by over-reliance on institutional admission rates, which creates false sense of reality. MORE

Nov. 26, 2014

Letter from Christopher B Nelson, president of St John's College, comments on November 23 Frank Bruni Op-Ed column about weakening of college admissions requirements. MORE

Nov. 25, 2014

Op-Ed article by political theorist Yascha Mounk examines evidence that Harvard University engages in so-called racial balancing, effectively limiting the number of Asian-Americans who are accepted despite that group's superior performance on standardized tests; argues key issues are the perception that Asians lack individuality, and an unacknowledged aversion to whites becoming a minority at the school; calls for more transparent system so that intangible admission criteria cannot be used to discriminate against Asian-American applicants. MORE

Nov. 23, 2014

Frank Bruni Op-Ed column criticizes colleges and universities like Swarthmore that have made applying easier in order to reduce their acceptance rates; contends this and other tactics depersonalize the college application process and make it harder for students to navigate it with real success. MORE

Nov. 20, 2014

Kaplan Test Prep report finds fewer college officials are finding online material that could be considered provocative and derail student's chance of admission, even though more admissions officers consider public social media accounts of applicants as fair game. MORE

Nov. 18, 2014

Harvard University and University of North Carolina are being sued by legal advocacy group Project on Fair Representation, which alleges that affirmative action policies are limiting admissions of white and Asian-American students and should be banned at colleges. MORE

Nov. 16, 2014

Growing number of high school seniors are applying to more colleges than anyone would previously have thought possible, in response to increasingly competitive landscape they face; counselors say submission of 10 applications is now commonplace, and even 30 is not beyond imagining. MORE

Oct. 27, 2014

New York Atty Gen Eric T Schneiderman has reached agreement with St John's University and two other institutions under which schools will drop question asking about former arrests and felony convictions from applications; agreement comes in response to concerns about unintended discrimination tied to racial imbalances in how some crimes are processed. MORE

Oct. 5, 2014

Op-Ed article by Prof Adam Grant contends college admissions system is broken; posits that assessment center, which has been used by business, government and military to screen candidates, is better way for colleges to select students. MORE

Oct. 1, 2014

University of Chicago is unveiling package of measures to make applying faster, simpler and cheaper, and to make studying there more affordable. MORE

Sep. 28, 2014

Handful of colleges in United States are offering students option to bypass traditional application route and submit essays, videos or other works in lieu of transcripts; some have argued that transcripts favor conventional, privileged worker bees over peers whose trials or quirks have gotten in way of school. MORE

Sep. 22, 2014

Editorial supports pending bills in the New York State Legislature that would limit the ability of colleges to screen prospective students based on minor criminal records; argues that practice must end because criminal records are often inaccurate and misleading, penalizing students for trivial events in the distant past; observes that participation in college has been demonstrated to reduce recidivism. MORE

Aug. 27, 2014

Group of alumni from eight prestigious New York City public high schools issues statement in support of keeping test as sole criterion for entry, inserting themselves in long-running debate over admissions process and its impact on schools’ racial makeup; legislators and civil rights groups have blamed test-only policy for fact that very few black and Hispanic students are admitted to eight so-called specialized high schools, in comparison with their numbers in city’s school system over all. MORE

Aug. 26, 2014

Federal surveys show that despite promises by elite colleges to admit more poor students, American universities educate roughly the same percentage of low-income students as a generation ago; circumstance exists even though many high school seniors from low-income homes have top grades and scores; with race-based affirmative action losing both judicial and public support, many have urged selective colleges to shift more focus to economic diversity. MORE

Aug. 3, 2014

Many business schools are adding additional elements, such as group discussions, exercises and video responses to prompts, in effort to get fuller picture of applicants. MORE

Aug. 3, 2014

Dozens of medical schools that have sprung up in Caribbean over four decades are catching overflow of American students who could not get into medical school at home. MORE

Aug. 3, 2014

Experts point out that it is very difficult for students from less competitive colleges to gain admission to top graduate schools, undermining common advice that master's degree is more important to career ambitions than undergraduate education. MORE

Aug. 3, 2014

Several types of professional schools, which teach specific set of career skills that often lead to certification, and their acceptance rates and job market prospects, profiled. MORE

Jul. 17, 2014

Editorial supports federal appeals court decision upholding affirmative action admissions at University of Texas in face of lawsuit brought by white student Abigail Fisher after she was denied admission; holds that university has made strong effort to reach workable solution to diversity effort, and has largely succeeded in doing so. MORE

Jul. 16, 2014

Three-judge panel of United States Court of Appeals for Fifth Circuit upholds University of Texas at Austin’s consideration of race as one of many factors in admissions; case was brought by Abigail Fisher, white student who was not in the top 10 percent of her high school class and was denied admission to the university for the fall of 2008. MORE

Jun. 23, 2014

Op-Ed article by Richard D Kahlenberg, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, questions fairness of system governing admission to New York City's elite public high schools; notes that only 5 percent of seats were offered to black students and 7 percent to Latinos; disputes policy of basing admissions entirely on results of Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, and calls for broadening of selection criteria, offering system used by Chicago's public schools as model. MORE

Jun. 19, 2014

Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass, announces that it will no longer consider SAT or ACT scores in admissions or financial aid decisions. MORE

Jun. 15, 2014

Frank Bruni Op-Ed column contends that essay portion of college applications can illustrate way that applicants do stagy, desperate, disturbing things to stand out so they can be accepted at the most selective schools; maintains it also highlights tendency toward runaway candor and uncensored revelation. MORE

Jun. 10, 2014

Bills now being introduced in Albany to change what critics argue is a discriminatory admissions policy at New York City's most selective high schools are receiving only tepid political support; bills would allow the schools to use multiple measures to decide whom to admit, rather than the single criterion, a test two and a half hours long, that they now must rely on. MORE

May. 10, 2014

Ron Lieber Your Money column examines standout college essays from high school seniors, offering revealing portraits in writing about their financial circumstances. MORE

May. 10, 2014

Update on four students who shared their college application essays addressing class and money, showing where they are after one year of school. MORE

May. 7, 2014

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has emerged as an increasingly confident figure as she approaches her fifth anniversary on the court; observers say Sotomayor seems to have found her voice, and is willing to stake out positions that have led to testy exchanges with her colleagues, like her impassioned and at times personal dissent from ruling on Michigan's ban on using race in admissions decisions at state's public universities. MORE

Apr. 27, 2014

The Upshot; reasons for why it is harder to get into selective colleges now as compared with decades ago are not well understood; one overlooked factor is that top colleges, for whom foreign students have become a revenue source, are admitting fewer American students than they did a generation ago. MORE

Apr. 25, 2014

Op-Ed article by Prof Evan J Mandery highlights fact that public and private colleges routinely give preferential treatment to children of alumni, which is in fact a form of affirmative action; contends there is no justification for legacy admissions as it endures as a mechanism for reinforcing inequality. MORE

Apr. 23, 2014

Supreme Court upholds Michigan constitutional amendment that bans affirmative action in admissions to the state's public universities; 6-2 ruling effectively endorses similar measures in seven other states, and reveals deep divisions over what role the judiciary should play in protecting racial and ethnic minorities. MORE

Apr. 23, 2014

Leaders in higher education, upset by Supreme Court decision upholding Michigan’s ban on race-based preferences in college admissions, say ruling will nudge them further along the path of finding alternative means to promote diversity in their student bodies; say it appears that affirmative action has a limited future and admissions criteria is moving to other factors such as income. MORE

Apr. 23, 2014

Editorial criticizes Supreme Court decision to allow Michigan voters to ban race-conscious admissions policies in higher education; praises Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent, which rightly took aim at conservative members of the court who wrote off decades-old precedent meant to address lingering effects of racial discrimination. MORE

Apr. 22, 2014

Number of New York City students placed on waiting lists for kindergarten has dropped by half in current school year as Education Dept uses new strategy for matching students with schools; large number of 5-year-olds, however, still have not gained admission to any of their preferred schools, an outcome certain to frustrate families jockeying for seats at some of the city’s most coveted kindergarten programs. MORE

Apr. 21, 2014

Letter signed by dance teachers at La Guardia High School of Music and Performing Arts to New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina accuses La Guardia's principal of basing admissions on academic records and test scores ahead of talent; letter contends that principal, Dr Lisa Mars, rejected 43 out of 92 students the dance faculty had recommended, an unusually high ratio. MORE

Apr. 16, 2014

College Board will release many details of its revised SAT, to be introduced in the spring of 2016, including sample questions and explanations of the research, goals and specifications behind them; one big change is in vocabulary questions, which will no longer include obscure words. MORE

Apr. 9, 2014

Competition for spots at top American universities is more cutthroat and anxiety-inducing than ever, with the most selective colleges rejecting a vast majority of applications; admissions directors say that most of the students they turn down are such strong candidates that many are indistinguishable from those who get in; trend is in part due to students applying to more institutions, even as enrollment is sliding from its peak in 2011. MORE

Apr. 9, 2014

Bard College invites prospective freshmen to dispense with standard admission process and simply write four long essays chosen from a menu of 21 scholarly topics; professors deem 17 of those who completed applications worthy of admission, for an acceptance rate that is just a few percentage points lower than Bard’s overall rate. MORE

Apr. 8, 2014

Adam Liptak Sidebar column highlights lawyer Edward Blum, who spearheaded the 2013 affirmative action challenge Fisher v University of Texas that landed in Supreme Court; notes that Blum has started a series of websites seeking plaintiffs for further suits against universities that he says have resisted Supreme Court's decision about limiting use of race in college admissions. MORE

Apr. 5, 2014

New York City Education Dept reports that the number of children qualifying for seats in gifted programs in New York City public schools has declined in 2014, though they are still far higher than when citywide admissions testing began a few years ago. MORE

Apr. 1, 2014

Frank Bruni Op-Ed column lampoons the overheated college admissions process and the American obsession with getting into elite schools at any cost; holds that a diploma from an exclusive school is no guarantee of a well-forged identity or a satisfying career. MORE

Mar. 11, 2014

Op-Ed article by Prof John D Mayer defends the SAT against pushback from colleges and public opinion; says despite its limitations it provides valuable insight about a student's mind and capacities; contends such tests should be expanded to include wider measures, including creativity and emotional intelligence. MORE

A decision by the University of Massachusetts to follow through on a law that bars Iranian students from some science and engineering programs sparked fury, consternation and accusations of discrimination.